Populations grow exponentially, world economies are expanding, demand for energy is escalating, global warming becomes more evident, and fossil fuels are running out. Political tensions regarding hydrocarbons are high to say the least. The United States, and rest of the world, needs solutions to these energy problems and they need them to be clean renewable solutions.
In the Atlantic Ocean off the Southeastern United States runs the Gulf Stream. Essentially, the Gulf Stream is a river of ocean water flowing with an average speed of 4 mph. At its widest point, the Gulf Stream is almost as wide as Florida. This flow of ocean water carries as much energy as the entire world consumes 100 times over, and it flows constantly 24 hrs a day 365 days a year. Similar currents run along the edges of all other continents.
Numerous companies have designed and built devices that convert the energy of flowing water into useable electricity, but such devices tend to consist of traditional turbines. These marine turbines are very similar to common wind turbines but they are designed to be used underwater. Marine turbines have rotating blades that slice through the water, and likewise slice into whales, manatees, dolphins, and other marine animals that may be swimming by. These blade impacts not only injure or kill the animal, but also break the blades of the device and render the marine turbine useless until it is repaired. When traditional marine turbines are used in flowing rivers they are not only susceptible to catastrophic damage by animal impacts, but by debris such as tree branches that drift downstream. Solutions to these problems are virtually impossible to find because screening the water flow ahead of such turbines ultimately blocks the energy itself. Any screen would soon get clogged with seaweed and marine growth in a very short period of time. A new approach was deemed necessary and the invention herein provides the solutions.
To be viable, a device that converts the energy of flowing water into useable energy must not harm marine life. The device must also be very strong and robust to survive punishing river and ocean environments. Traditional turbine blades must inherently be hydrodynamically efficient, and thus cannot be thick, strong, and robust as required.
To be reliable, a device that converts energy from flowing water cannot be complex. Sophisticated components should be avoided and all critical components must be well protected from the harsh wet conditions. An uncomplicated design will also ensure capital, operating, and maintenance costs associated with the device will be very low. When costs are low enough, the resulting cost per kilowatt hour can match that of fossil fuels.
Ideally, a device that converts energy from flowing water should also be capable of being scaled up to enormous size without requiring an array, or vast quantities, of such devices. Many devices in an array only results in hundreds, if not thousands, of components needing to be maintained. Spread out amongst the array, even simple components will be difficult to maintain if they are distributed out over several square miles. An ideal device would still have an extremely low number of components even when scale up and sized to produce 100 s, if not 1000 s, of megawatts. Finally, an ideal device would not be affected by hurricanes nor typhoons that might pass by. The novel invention described herein delivers on every single objective mentioned in the paragraphs above.
Upon review of all similar innovations, one will find that prior art has addressed only a few of the necessary requirements. Without addressing all of them, such a device cannot produce power both safely and cost-effectively. Particular features not found in prior inventions make this particular invention considerably more viable, practical, economical, cost-effective, and harmless to underwater environments.